Please make sure that you have familiarized yourself with the academic calendar and the final exam schedule (under the"Teach/Advise" tab on your MySanDiego.edu page) . It important to state the day and time of your final exam on the course syllabus and remind students on the first day of class that the final is a required part of the course and that family gatherings, airline reservations, etc., are not valid excuses for missing a final.
There is considerable flux in class registration during the first week or so of class. Most of your classes will typically be filled to capacity. You are by no means required to, but may allow “crashers” by signing an add/drop form or--a recent innovation--by using the "Registration Override" function under Banner Self-Service on your My.SanDiego Teach/Advise page. You do so, however, at your own peril. In general, the department does not believe that classes larger than 40 students at the lower and 30 students at the upper division level, respectively, provide a good learning environment. Avoid over-generosity (and being taken advantage of) in this respect.
You should schedule 1.5 hours of office hours for each 3-unit course you are teaching. Full-time faculty are expected to have a minimum of five hours of office hours, or four hours if they have reassigned time. Please post your schedule, including the office hours, on your door, using the form provided by Michelle, and make sure Michelle has a copy of the same. Regular, predicable availability in office hours is very important You are required by the dean to honor your scheduled office hours.
Final exams must be given at the scheduled time unless the dean’s office gives written permission for a change. No tests may be given in the last week of class (the “dead week”). Minor quizzes are permitted during the dead week, if they are listed on the syllabus and count for less than 10% of the final grade. Make-up exams for an individual are permitted during dead week.
If you permit students to take make-up exams, you must also proctor the exam. Neither Michelle nor work study students are permitted to do so.
In case of illness, please call Michelle as soon as possible. She will see that a note is posted on your class door. This will prevent chaos at the office.
If you are forced to miss class because of illness or any other reason, the class must either be covered by a colleague (by advance arrangement) or cancelled. Classes, even simple video presentations, must be proctored by a faculty member. Please do not ask Michelle or a work study student to cover for you, for example, by showing a video. Needless to say, it is not acceptable to ask students to show videos or the like in class without faculty supervision.
On your syllabus, make sure that your office location, office hours, and—again--the time and date of the final exam are included.
A copy of your syllabus must be placed in the department’s syllabi file. Please leave it with Michelle.
Bluebooks and Scantrons can be obtained from the supplies cabinet in the THRS Office. Students should not bring their own bluebooks or paper to the exam.
It is a college tradition to leave a classroom with the blackboards or whiteboards clean and ready for the next class. If your classroom has a whiteboard, you need to carry your own whiteboard markers. These are available in the office.
If you are teaching in the next semester, please be aware that book orders are due to the USD Bookstore in mid-October for the spring semester; late April for the fall semester. The bookstore will send you forms. If you are using texts from foreign publishers, the deadline should be two weeks earlier. For further information on book ordering, see the USD Bookstore web site.
Faculty are expected to accommodate students with disabilities. The student should produce for you USD documentation stating both that she or he has a disability and the accommodation suggested by the university. If this accommodation includes significantly extra time on exams, the proctoring of those exams can be set up through the Office of Disabilities Services (ODS), x4655. It is the student’s responsibility to get the paperwork to ODS one week before the exam; it is your responsibility to get the exam to ODS (Serra 300) the day before the exam. They now accept exams via email attachments, and will contact you with a (presumably) secure email address prior to your exam.